


Worth

by Kestral



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:30:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kestral/pseuds/Kestral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The E%ectioner (Darkleer) goes searching for the Disciple to find out if she was worth all the trouble he got for letting her live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth

A troll walks through a forest, a dangerous thing to do, especially in uncharted territory. His arrows are all spent and his bow hangs useless on his shoulder. He has thought many times of discarding it. What would one do with a bow without arrows, break it and use it like a club? Preposterous! However, he keeps the bow, it is a reminder to him. It is important.  
    The underbrush rustles and the troll freezes. Creatures that should only be found in a young troll’s daymares stalk this forest. For them, killing an unarmed troll would be nothing. He knows he would be dead by now if he was not blessed with exceptional STRENGTH.  
    Mingfang had made this venture sound so easy,  
    “Sh8t up a8out the Disc8ple alr8dy! I g88888888t it!!!!!!!! ‘W8s she w8rth it????????’ G8t out 8nd f8nd her!!!!!!!!”  
    Mindfang has always been exceptionally extravagant, but her advice is often useful. That is what started this journey.   
    The thing in the bushes moves again, and the troll whirls to face it. He clenches his fists. The knuckles are dark blue with scabs that reopen every fight.  
    Yellow eyes with green pupils glow in the darkness. Those are no animal eyes, but the eyes of a troll.  
    Their eyes lock. The troll in the bushes hisses and disappears.  
    “Wait! I command you to stay!” He pauses, reconsidering his words. “Or maybe I don’t. Actually, I ask you to stay. I mean you no harm.”  
    The eyes reappear, across the clearing. How could she move so quickly in silence?  
    “Love-killer tells Huntress that he means no harm. Why should he not? Highbloods always wanted Huntress dead. They enslaved Dolorosa-mother and Psiioniic-friend but wanted Huntress dead. Love-killer is Highblood-slave.”  
    “I am no slave! How very 100d. I am too high on the hemosprectrum to be a slave. The very idea is, disgusting.”  
    “Hemospectrum is lies and slavery,” she hisses. “Love wasn’t on hemospectrum, he died just the same.”  
    The blue blood looks nervous. She is speaking such hearsay that it is making him perspire.  
    “But Love-killer only killed Love, not Huntress. She heard the order given, but the arrow never flew. Why?”  
    She steps out of the shadows, into the moons’ light. Her cloths are old, but the E%ecutor recognizes them. They are the same clothes she wore on the night he was commanded to cull her, and inexplicably, didn’t. Her shoes are gone and her hair a wild mane of twigs and snarls. Tied to her hands are animal claws, and he can see the dull colors of blood on them. She crawls, no, crawling is what weak wigglers do, she stalks around him. Circling him as a predator would circle prey. The two moons give her twin shadows.  
    “Why didn’t the arrow fly? Why didn’t it pierce Huntress? Why didn’t she bleed? Such pretty colors, all swirling. That is what Highbloods like you know. They like painting pictures. Why is Huntress living worth more than pleasing Highbloods to Love-killer?” She pauses, then hisses, showing her fangs. “Answer me! Answer the Huntress, Love-killer!”  
    “I don’t know. I came 100king for you to find out.”  
    This answer surprises her. She sits back on her haunches, and cocks her head, prompting him to continue.  
    “I wanted to know who it was that I did not cull. Who was it that caused me to, on a whim, disobey the Highb100ds and throw away everything I have ever worked towards. To find out if the life I saved was worth all the trouble it got me in.”  
    “Huntress has also wondered who Love-killer is. She would also like to learn his worth. She thinks Love-killer should come to her den.”  
    He steps back, amazed. He killed the troll she loved and she is inviting him to stay with her, instead of getting revenge.  
    “How can you not hate me?”  
    She wrinkles up her nose and hisses.  
    “Not that kind of hate! Goodness know, how scandalous that would be! I could not hate a lowb100d like you. Inexcusable.”  
    She looks the blue blood up and down.  
    “Love-killer will come to Huntress’s den. She has something to show him.”  
    He looks disturbed by this.  
    “Are you giving me an order? You cannot order me around, lowb100ded swine!”  
    In a flash she is on him, hissing. Her hot breath in his face smells of her dead prey.  
    “Huntress thinks Love-killer is very rude for someone talking to a Huntress that could end his enslavement, or end his life.” Her claws cut into his shoulders and he gasps in pain. He struggles against her grip, but he cannot escape.  
    She looks at his blood on her claws. “Such pretty blood, it is worth so much more than Huntress’s green. Blood is the fluid of life, you know. Huntress knows. Huntress could make such beautiful pictures on the wall with it. So could Highbloods. Purple, green, we can kill just the same.  
    The pinned troll knows what comes next, death. How funny, Mindfang, who had invested so much of her time in protecting his life, had advised him to his death. She could have know this trip would kill him. She had often bragged about her oracle. It made sense, he had paid his debt to her and she had discarded of him. He hopes the Huntress, the Disciple, he corrects himself, makes his death quick, and takes joy in her revenge.  
    The pressure on his chest disappears. Looking up, he saw her sitting back.  
    “But Huntress is not all the way like Highbloods. She does not kill needlessly.”  
    He stares at her, amazed to still be breathing. She meets his gaze with her unflinching green eyes.  
    “Come,” she whispers, and vanishes into the shadows.  
    He follows.

**Author's Note:**

> In my head-cannon (and maybe real cannon, I can't remember) the Disciple has the Sufferer's scriptures painted on her cave wall. She invites Darkleer to her cave to see them because he is so hemofascist. I imagine that this will lead to a pale romance. I feel like there is more to this story but I have no idea where it should go so it is unlikely that it will be written by me.
> 
> Mindfang, what are you doing in this fic? It isn't about you.


End file.
